Category Archives: Russia

Congress: Islamist Terror Threat Matrix

Posted on by

U.S. Terror Matrix

 

 

 

The full House of Representatives 8 page report is here.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The jihadist threat in the U.S. homeland is high and has escalated dramatically this year. There have been more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11. The number of U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists has gone from 38 in July 2010 to 124 today—more than a three-fold increase in just five years.

• ISIS is fueling the Islamist terror wildfire across the globe at unprecedented speed. As of the end of August, the group has inspired or directed 57 terror attack plots against Western targets, including 15 in the United States. A recent train attack in France would have been a mass-casualty attack had it not been for an alert group of Americans. There have now been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked attack plots against the West this year (37) as there were in all of 2014 (20).

• Islamist terrorists are intent on killing American law enforcement and military personnel, in addition to innocent civilians. Radicals are increasingly targeting men and women in uniform here in the United States. In August, ISIS supporters released another “hit list” of American government personnel, including service members. Since early 2014, the majority of Islamist terror plots on U.S. soil have featured plans to kill police or U.S. service members.

• ISIS has largely maintained its terror safe havens in Syria and Iraq while expanding globally more than a year after the U.S. and its allies launched operations against it. Al Qaeda affiliates from Syria to Yemen have also carved out sanctuary and seized additional terrain. ISIS retained control over its major strongholds in Syria and Iraq while undertaking disruption attacks and offensives in key territory; ISIS-affiliated militants have simultaneously consolidated control in Libya. Foreign fighters continue to swell the ranks of Islamist extremist groups looking to recruit foot soldiers and activate followers to launch attacks in their home countries.

HOMEGROWN ISLAMIST EXTREMISM

The jihadist threat in the U.S. homeland is high and has escalated dramatically this year.

By the numbers

• Since September 11, 2001, there have been 124 U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists. Over 80 percent of these cases—which include plotted attacks and attempts to join foreign terrorist organizations—have occurred or been disrupted since 2009.1

 

• Authorities have arrested or charged at least 52 individuals in the United States this year – 67 since 2014 – in ISIS-related cases. The cases involve individuals: plotting attacks; attempting to travel to join ISIS overseas; sending money, equipment and weapons to terrorists; falsifying statements to federal authorities; and failing to report a felony.2

• FBI Director James Comey has said authorities have hundreds of open investigations of potential ISIS-inspired extremists that cover all 56 of the bureau’s field offices in all 50 states. He stated there may be hundreds or thousands of Americans who are taking in recruitment propaganda over social media applications: “It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill.”

Recent Developments

• August 24: Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal, 42, was arrested in Avondale, Arizona, for helping a 24-year-old New York City resident travel to Syria to receive military training from ISIS. El Gammal was an avid ISIS supporter online and engaged the recruit through social media before in-person meetings. El Gammal and the recruit communicated with an unnamed co-conspirator based in Turkey.

TERROR PLOTS AGAINST THE WEST

ISIS is fueling the Islamist terror wildfire across the globe at unprecedented speed.

By the numbers

• Since early 2014, there have been 57 planned or executed ISIS-linked terror plots against Western targets, including 15 inside in the United States.3

• There have been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked plots against Western targets in the first seven months of this year (37) than in all of 2014 (20).4

Recent Developments

• August 21: A 25-year-old Moroccan national, Ayoub El Khazzani, attacked passengers on a train in Thalys, France, before a group led by three Americans, including two service members on vacation, subdued him. Khazzani was armed with an arsenal of weapons and 270 rounds of ammunition. He watched a jihadist propaganda video before attempting to launch his attack. He had lived in and attended a radical mosque in Spain before relocating to France. He had also lived in Belgium and traveled from Germany to Turkey in early May before returning to Europe in June. This trip was reportedly part of a plot to fight with ISIS in Syria.

• August 13: ISIS’s “hacking division” released information regarding 1,400 American government personnel, including service members, and encouraged supporters to track down and attack them. The list included names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. ISIS operative and hacker Junaid Hussain had been central to similar plots targeting servicemembers; Hussain was eliminated in an August 24th drone strike in Syria.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

Undeterred by airstrikes, foreign fighters continue to pour into the conflict zone in Syria and Iraq, bolstering ISIS and representing a potential threat to their home countries—including America—upon return.

By the numbers

• More than 25,000 fighters from 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join extremists—the largest convergence of Islamist terrorists in world history. U.S. estimates reportedly put its current manpower at 20,000-30,000 members. “We’ve seen no meaningful degradation in their numbers” since last August, according to a defense official.

• Approximately 4,500 Western fighters have traveled to Syria and Iraq.5 Europol recently assessed that the high-end estimate of EU citizens who left to fight in Syria may have been as high as 5,000 at the beginning of this year.

• An estimated 550 Western women have traveled to the conflict zone.

Read the whole report here.

 

 

China Russia Military Parade, During Economic Spiral

Posted on by

In part LATimes: President Xi Jinping announced Thursday that China will cut its military by 300,000 troops, a significant reduction in one of the largest militaries in the world and a move that the Chinese leader called a gesture of peace. China’s ruling Communist Party staged a massive military parade in central Beijing, sending a stream of goose-stepping troops, tanks, and ballistic missiles down a major east-west thoroughfare as fighter jets zoomed overhead trailing multicolored smoke.

Xi’s speech kicked off the parade — officially called the “Commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Victory of Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War.”

An estimated 12,000 troops – about 1,000 of whom hailed from Belarus, Cuba, Tajikistan, and other countries – marched along the 10-lane Changan Avenue from the commercial center Wangfujing to Tiananmen Square, about 1.5 miles away. They were joined by 200 fighter jets and 500 pieces of military hardware, including tanks and ballistic missiles.

Representatives from 49 countries were in attendance, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Rory Medcalf, head of the national security college at Australian National University, said that Beijing may have decided to cut 300,000 troops “in the name of efficiency and cost saving so that the defense budget can be reallocated to 21st century capabilities.” More here.

The friendship between Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi is becoming strained

BEIJING: They have met more than a dozen times and stood shoulder to shoulder during Thursday’s military parade here. But the once-vaunted relationship between the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, has come under strain as the economies of their countries have faltered.

Two landmark energy deals signed last year for Russian natural gas to flow to China have made little progress and were barely mentioned when the two men met for talks after watching the show of weapons Thursday on Tiananmen Square. The bilateral trade that was predicted to amount to more than $100 billion this year instead reached only about $30 billion in the first six months, largely because of a reduced Chinese demand for Russian oil.

Putin has enjoyed basking in the stature of Xi, who leads one of the world’s largest economies. But with the recent stock market turmoil in China and the slowest economic growth in a quarter-century, Beijing will be unable to provide the ballast Putin has sought against economic sanctions imposed on Russia by Europe and the United States after its annexation of Crimea, not to mention plummeting oil prices worldwide.

“Russia was dependent on China growing and driving the demand for its commodities: oil, gas and minerals,” said Fiona Hill, a Russia specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “China was an alternative to Europe.”

The linchpin of the relationship between Xi and Putin was a May 2014 accord on a 30-year deal for China to buy natural gas from fields in Eastern Siberia, for a reported $400 billion with first delivery between 2019 and 2021. During the signing in Shanghai, Putin bragged that the deal was an “epochal event,” and expressed relief that Russia, under pressure from European sanctions, would be able to diversify its gas sales. More details here.

Analysts: Beijing Parade a ‘Bazaar’ of Stolen Technology

Saibal Dasgupta, Voice of America

The massive military parade in Beijing this week showcased China’s latest weapons, unveiling many to the public for the first time. But weapons experts say the systems on display showed hallmarks of China’s reputation for stealing technology and adapting it to its requirements.
 
The show involved long, medium and short range missiles, a range of tanks and 200 fighter aircraft. The Chinese government said that all the equipment had been made indigenously, attesting to the success of the country’s military industrial capability and the estimated $145 billion spent on the military in 2015.

“The parade was a bazaar of stolen intellectual property,” said Michael Raska, senior fellow at the Singapore-based Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.

The researcher said it is possible to identify components and designs in different equipment, which have been sourced from other countries in a dubious manner.

Cloned Technology

Citing a specific example, Raska said, “The HQ-6A launchers that we saw at the parade are based conceptually on the cloned Italian Alenia Aspide missile, itself which is based on the US RIM-7E/F Sparrow.”

Raska said the Chinese J-15 naval fighter is based on adaptation of Russia’s Sukhoi Su-33.
 
The United States has repeatedly accused China in recent years of cybertheft of U.S. technology and weapons systems on a grand scale. U.S. defense contractors have alleged that China’s J-31 stealth fighter is largely based on stolen technology of the U.S. F-35.

The United States last year said that Chinese army hackers had stolen trade secrets from six U.S. nuclear, steel and clean-energy companies, directly resulting in “substantial” loss of jobs, competitive edge and markets.
 
“This is a case alleging economic espionage by members of the Chinese military… to advantage state-owned companies and other interests in China,” then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.

But Raska said China has passed the stage where they were “emulators and copiers” and reached what experts describe as the point of “IDAR,” which means identify, digest, absorb and reinvest technologies.
 
Mix-and-Match

Analysts said it is not easy for countries and companies that produced an original technology to prove that it was stolen by China. Component designs are mixed and matched across different categories of weapons before they are remodeled and manufactured in China.
 
China may also be using its diplomatic relationships with countries that have acquired Western weapons and do not mind passing on acquired technologies to Chinese scientists.
 
But even with such technology sharing from countries friendly with China, Jagganath Panda, a research fellow at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis, said the country’s investments in its military have paid off.

“We need to accept that China has been hugely successful in developing a strong military industrial production capability,” he said.
 
In recent years China has sold drones, warships, submarines and air defense systems to developing countries, becoming the world’s third largest arms exporter behind the United States and Russia.
 
Indeed, one major point of Thursday’s military parade may have been to display the country’s newest advanced systems to interested buyers, and bolster China’s reputation as an emerging military power.

Syria Then, Syria a Typical Day Today

Posted on by

There are Americans in Syria fighting on that the United States has ignored. The WSJ has the back story.

All those devastating reports and photos of Syrians fleeing to any part of Europe and leaving this behind.

Ariha, Syria then:

What is notable:

  1. Basic citizens have become savvy fighters.
  2. The rebels fighting against the Assad regime have become battle trained and skilled at tactics in taking over a city.
  3. The city is empty of the common Syria family, no infrastructure left.
  4. Syria today is due to Bashir al Assad being supported by Iran and Russia.

JPOA: Strategic Consequences For U.S. National Security

Posted on by

What you can know from the military experts that the Democrats that are standing with the White House on the Iran ‘YES’ vote are ignoring.

The full report is here.

Assessment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action:

By: Co-Chairs General James Conway, USMC (ret.) and General Charles Wald, USAF (ret.)

Strategy Council and Staff

Members

Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, USN (ret.)

Former Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa

General Lou Wagner, USA (ret.)

Former Commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command

Vice Admiral John Bird, USN (ret.)

Former Commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet

Lt. General David Deptula, USAF (ret.)

Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, U.S. Air Force Headquarters

Maj. General Lawrence Stutzriem, USAF (ret.)

Former Director, Plans, Policy, and Strategy, North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command

 

We assess:

The JCPOA will not prevent a nuclear Iran. No later than 15 years, the deal’s major nuclear restrictions will lapse, Iran will stand on the brink of nuclear weapons capability, and once again the United States will likely have to devote significant resources and attention to keeping Tehran from attaining nuclear weapons.

  1. The JCPOA will give Iran the means to increase support for terrorist and insurgent proxies, aggravate sectarian conflict and trigger both nuclear and conventional proliferation cascades. It will provide the expansionist regime in Tehran with access to resources, technology and international arms markets required to bolster offensive military capabilities in the vital Persian Gulf region, acquire long-range ballistic missiles and develop other major weapons systems.
  1. Our long-standing allies feel betrayed – even angry – with the JCPOA, seeing it as a weakening of U.S. security guarantees and reversal of decades of U.S. regional security policy. The mere fact that such perceptions persist, regardless of their veracity, will undermine U.S. credibility, threatening to turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  1. Simultaneously, sequestration is diminishing the ability of the United States to respond to Iranian aggression, mitigate security threats emanating from Iran and protect U.S. regional allies. Leaving it with fewer and older ships and planes as well as fewer and less well-trained troops, these cuts will severely damage the U.S. military’s ability to project power in the region, even as the Iranian threat grows.
  1. The United States is in a far better position to prevent a nuclear Iran today, even by military means if necessary, than when the JCPOA sunsets. The strategic environment will grow much more treacherous in the next 15 years. Comparatively, Iran will be economically stronger, regionally more powerful and militarily more capable, while the United States will have a smaller, less capable fighting force, diminished credibility and fewer allies.

Contrary to the false choice between support for the JCPOA and military confrontation, the agreement increases both the probability and danger of hostilities with Iran. Given the deleterious strategic consequences to the United States, implementation of the JCPOA will demand increased political and military engagement in the Middle East that carries significantly greater risks and costs relative to current planning assumptions.

Improved Iran Military Capabilities

The JCPOA will enable Iran to improve its unconventional military capabilities to challenge the strategic position of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. Iran will be able to revitalize its defense industrial base in the short term, even if it devotes only a fraction of the $100 billion or more that will be unfrozen as part of the agreement – more than the government’s entire budget for the current fiscal year – to military spending. It is also set to acquire advanced S-300 air defenses from Russia at the end of this year. Over the medium term, the removal of economic sanctions and the United Nations arms embargo will allow the regime to acquire other advanced technologies and weapons from abroad. And, once sanctions against its ballistic missile program sunset, Iran could more easily develop weapons capable of reaching targets in the Middle East and beyond – including Europe and the United States.

Iran has historically been at a serious disadvantage against the United States in conventional military power, most notably when the use of overwhelming U.S. force in the region compelled it to reverse course dramatically and agree to a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 and to suspend its nuclear program in 2003. Indeed, Iran lacks large numbers of sophisticated conventional capabilities, including armored forces, air support and fighter aircraft and large surface ships. This likely will remain true for the foreseeable future.

Despite its deficit in conventional capabilities, Iran poses an asymmetric challenge to U.S. military assets and interests in the region. Iran learned from hard experience that it could not match the United States in a direct military confrontation. It also understands the United States relies heavily on unfettered access to close-in bases across the Middle East to keep the region’s vital and vulnerable sea lanes open, conduct combat operations and deter aggression against its allies. Therefore, it has spent more than a decade pursuing a strategy to disrupt or deter the United States from projecting superior forces into the region, or to prevent those forces from operating effectively if deployed. For example, Iran could seek to do so by sealing off the Persian Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz; degrading U.S. freedom of maneuver and military lines of communication; blocking the flow of oil through the Gulf; and targeting naval and commercial vessels, military bases, energy infrastructure and other vital sites inside and outside the Gulf.

Iran has acquired and developed various capabilities to execute this asymmetric strategy, including anti-access/area denial (A2/AD). It possesses the region’s largest arsenal of short (SRBM) and medium-range (MRBM) ballistic missiles, as well as a growing arsenal of cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), to target military and energy installations throughout the Gulf, including U.S. ships. It also has a sizable fleet of fast attack craft, submarines and large numbers of torpedoes and naval mines for choking off Hormuz and attacking the aforementioned targets. The S-300 air defense systems could stymie U.S. air operations around the Gulf, in addition to complicating any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Russian or Chinese-sourced anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles could give Iran an even greater standoff capability, allowing it to target U.S. naval assets beyond the Persian Gulf. Iran is also devoting attention to cyber warfare against the battle networks of U.S. forces and the critical infrastructure of its adversaries in the region.7

Assessment of the JCPOA: Strategic Consequences for U.S. National Security

The JCPOA will provide Iran with access to the resources, technology and international arms markets it needs to execute its asymmetric and A2/AD strategy more effectively. We expect it will take full advantage of the opportunity. Iran could simply make or buy more of what it already has, particularly missiles, launchers, submarines and surface warfare ships. It could also upgrade crucial capabilities. Improved precision guidance systems would enable Iran’s ballistic and cruise missiles to target individual ships and installations around the Gulf much more accurately, as would new missile boats, submarines and mobile launchers. If combined with longer-range radars, it could expand this increased threat across wider swathes of the region. Better UAVs or multirole aircraft – not to mention additional advanced air defenses – could permit it to contest U.S. air supremacy over the region. It could also augment its stealth and electronic and cyber warfare capabilities with new technologies from abroad.

Iran might also invest in entirely new capabilities to disrupt and deter operations not only around its immediate vicinity, but also across the region more broadly. These could include long-range strike, satellite, airlift and sealift capabilities as well as the development of long-range ballistic missiles.

The full 14 page report is here.

 

 

 

Obama Failed Redline, U.S. Military, Chemical Weapons Suits

Posted on by

US military ordering troops in Iraq to dust off chemical weapon suits

FNC: The U.S. military has ordered its nearly 3,500 troops stationed in Iraq to reacquaint themselves with their chemical weapons suits due to evidence that the Islamic State has obtained chemical weapons and used them on multiple occasions.

“It is a precautionary measure,” a defense official told Fox News, acknowledging the order.

During a briefing Thursday, the Pentagon would not publicly confirm the order but reassured reporters that the military is prepared to handle a chemical attack by ISIS.

“The commanders in the field are making sure their troops are adequately prepared for the threats they may face,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said when asked about the new preparations.

Defense officials recently confirmed that a “mustard agent” was used by ISIS against Kurdish Peshmerga forces in a mortar attack on Aug. 11 in the northern Iraqi city of Makhmur, located southwest of Erbil.

“[We] were able to take the fragments from some of those mortar rounds and do a field test, a presumptive field test on those fragments and they showed the presence of HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard. That is a class one chemical agent,” said Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, chief of staff, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, in a Pentagon video-teleconference with reporters from his base in southwest Asia  late last month.

In the past few days, more evidence has surfaced of chemical weapons attacks by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

On Monday, a rocket suspected of carrying chemical weapons was fired by ISIS at Kurdish Peshmerga forces guarding the Mosul Dam, the Kurdish media news agency Rudaw reported.

The attack produced “yellow smoke,” according to the report.  There were no significant injuries reported.

On Wednesday, Rudaw also reported that ISIS allegedly used chemical weapons again, this time in Syria against Kurdish fighters of the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in Hasaka province.

Where Did ISIS Get Its Chemical Weapons?

DailyBeast: The terror group is suspected of using mustard gas in a series of recent attacks, and a notorious Dutch jihadi says it’s from Assad’s stockpile. But U.S. officials beg to differ.
An infamous Dutch soldier turned ISIS fighter says the group has acquired chemical weapons once belonging to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, resurrecting fears that what was supposed to be the regime’s destroyed program has instead fallen into jihadi hands.

“The regime uses chemical warfare on a regular basis these days, and nobody bats an eye—yet when [ISIS] captures it from them and uses it against them it’s all of a sudden a huge problem?” ISIS fighter Omar Yilmaz, 27, said in a Tumblr post. “Fight them the way they fight you.”

The post marks the first time a public ISIS figure has declared that the group obtained chemical weapons from the Assad regime. And it comes just days after the first series of suspected ISIS mustard gas attacks in northern Iraq and Syria.

On Tuesday, Kurdish forces said ISIS fired a homemade rocket filled with chemical weapons at peshmerga forces. In a suspected Aug. 21 attack in the northern Syrian city of Marea, at least 25 people were contaminated. And on Aug. 13, Kurdish officials in Iraq said 60 peshmerga were exposed to mustard gas in the northern Iraqi city of Makhmour.

Pentagon officials believe there is credible evidence that mustard gas could indeed have been used in the two August strikes.

Yilmaz’s Aug. 31 post renews questions of ISIS’s source for several suspected chemical weapons attacks it orchestrated in northern Iraq and Syria. Did the Assad regime fail to fully destroy its chemical weapons arsenal? If Yilmaz’s claims are true, that would refute Pentagon claims that the group has developed its own rudimentary weapon.

Defense and intelligence officials told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that despite Yilmaz’s claims, they are still skeptical the weapons under ISIS control came from the Assad regime.

These officials noted that the recent attacks did not have the kind of impact they would expect to see from a state-sponsored chemicals weapons program. Attacks from such programs have the potential to kill thousands, as they did two years ago in the Damascus suburbs. These recent attacks instead injured scores.

Officials said they believe the weapons ISIS used are homegrown, noting the attacks have been rudimentary and that such weapons could be created by anyone with the right basic supplies. That is, the type of attacks believed to be carried out by ISIS did not require state-acquired weapons.

But critics note that the impact of the attacks could speak to how much state-acquired weapons have degraded. Others said ISIS could have state-created chemical weapons but not the munitions to disperse them effectively, weakening their impact. At the time Assad agreed to destroy his weapons, he did not control all the territory or facilities that held such weapons, still others asserted.

The most cynical of critics suggested that Assad could have purposely supplied ISIS with such weapons to perpetuate the narrative that he is confronting a far more ruthless foe than his regime.

Defense officials are dubious. Such weapons, if they still exist in Syria, “Assad is keeping for himself, in case he wants to use” them, one defense official retorted.

Either way, Yilmaz’s claims elevate the level of terror the group has sown in the region and the prospects that sophisticated chemical weapons are now part of its arsenal.

“I think [ISIS] is trying to convey several things. Its propaganda has been geared at intimidating enemies. This serves that purpose,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “And it wants to show its capability to would-be allies, to attract fighters.”

Yilmaz, as he is known, is a Dutch citizen of Turkish descent who first attracted attention roughly two years ago when photos emerged of the jihadist fighter wearing a Dutch military uniform. At the time, he was a facilitator for several other jihadist groups. His Instagram account depicting fighting in Syria, his prolific online presence, and his willingness to communicate with the West made him one of Europe’s highest-profile jihadists. Yilmaz reportedly first traveled to Syria after he was turned down for the Dutch’s military’s elite special forces.

In the last year he reportedly joined ISIS.

Last year, the mother of his one-time supposed 19-year-old bride, a Dutch woman raised Catholic before converting to Islam, retrieved her daughter from the Turkish-Syrian border. According to several postings online attributed to him shortly after she fled, he has since remarried.

In an October 2014 CBS News interview, Yilmaz said he felt that Syria was his homeland.

“We want Islamic law. We want our own rules,” he said in the interview from Syria, adding: “This fight never ends. This is our religion.”

The international push to rid Syria of chemical weapons began in the summer of 2013 after more than 300 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, a rebel-controlled suburb of Damascus. The West believed Assad carried out the attacks while the Syrian leader blamed opposition forces. President Obama had called the use of chemical weapons by the regime a red line, and the images of children convulsing after being exposed to chemical weapons created an international outcry. The U.S. appeared to be poised to launch strikes on Syria in response when the regime agreed to rid its nation of chemical weapons under a U.S.- and Russia-brokered agreement.

In August 2014, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it had verified that Syria had destroyed 1,040 tons of its Category 1 chemical weapons or munitions filled with chemicals that have no peaceful purpose.

But in May, OPCW reported its inspectors found traces of traces of sarin and VX nerve agent at a Syrian military research facility, suggesting the regime lied about destroying its arsenal or the extent of his stockpile.